[ february i log ]

[barrayarmods]

Who: Everyone
What: New arrivals, desperate times, whispers down the hall.
When: February 1st - 18th
Where: Barrayaran camp / Cetagandan base
Warnings: TBD


Quick links:
Barrayar: Barrayaran camp / Missions
Cetaganda: Cetagandan base / Missions



welcome to barrayar.
It's the dark of night when you come to in the foothills. Snow on the ground, chill winter wind whistling -- in fact, it's dangerously cold, and all you have is the clothes on your back.. A steep mountain range towers just ahead, its peaks illuminated by the light of two moons. Whatever you last remember, it isn't how you got here, and you feel oddly jetlagged, slightly queasy.

And you're not alone. There are a few other people close by, all looking equally lost and confused. But before any of you have a chance to figure out what's going on, the soldiers arrive.
There's a war on, they say, and you unlucky bastards have just been dropped right smack in the middle of it.

barrayar
The cold snap hits the guerrilla camp hard, especially with a handful of new people to care for. On the 1st, a few people from Riverfall Village come to the camp, Village Speaker Yakiv Gura among them, who seems to have a rapport with Piotr. They bring extra supplies with them, such as clothing, heavy wool blankets and bedrolls, as well as extra firewood to help fend off the cold. The new outsiders are accommodated the best they can -- they're all provided bedrolls and any extra clothing they (probably) need -- but the Barrayarans don't have an extra tent to spare, so that means all twelve outsiders are force to share a tent that ordinarily sleeps ten. On the plus side, it should provide some warmth. The cold is

A young boy comes in tow of the villagers; Speaker Gura tells Piotr that the boy turned up a week ago and insisted on helping them with the supply haul, despite his small size. He's clearly Barrayaran, and looks as though he might have been living on hisown for a while. He doesn't speak mcuh, and when asked his name, will only give it as Negri -- first or last, no one's sure, but the boy doesn't seem easily fazed. Piotr tells the villagers he has no room in his camp for lost children, but somehow the day after the villagers leave, Negri turns up in camp again. He's curious, but quiet and unobtrusive, wherever he is in camp. He's a very good listener…even when you might not want him to be.



On the 3rd, the Barrayarans and outsiders awake to discover that the part of the cave where they've kept the majority of their food supply has collapsed, either blocking their access to the cache or destroying it entirely. It's impossible to tell. The villagers can't spare much more than they already have been -- certainly not enough to feed the hundred and fifty-odd soldiers in the camp -- so while they try to find out a way to recoup their food supply, they have no choice but to slaughter their own horses for food. Food will be heavily rationed, but fairly -- the outsiders receive no less than the rest. The prisoners, on the other hand, get nothing. There probably isn't enough wild game in the area to sustain the camp, but Piotr sends out hunting parties, and when they get wind of a Cetagandan supply drop on its way, they organize a raid on the supply lines.

camp
With temperatures well below freezing, no food, and excruciatingly little in the way of advantage against the Cetagandans after their last infiltration attempt, morale is beginning to drop. Piotr and Olivia remain bastions of perseverance as always, but Sonia is beginning to buckle and wilt as the days go on. The soldiers do their best to entertain themselves and keep morale up, but all they've got are maple mead, and old card and dice games. They could use some new forms of entertainment. Maybe a snowball fight might get the blood moving -- assuming you can stand the wind chill. Thankfully, there's no shortage of warm clothes and wool scarves.

The cave isn't big enough to simply move all of camp inside, but the sickbay and mess tents are moved where it's a little warmer and out of the harsh wind. It's generally crowded with off-duty soldiers despite the food shortage, because no one wants to be out in the cold right now. Things get a little better after the mostly successful raids, but food is still heavily rationed.



missions
The hunting parties are only moderately successful; there isn't much wild game out there right now, and while the soldiers fare alright, the outsiders' hunting party fails miserably. The raiding parties yield a little more in the way of relief, enough now that they don't have to keep eating horse meat, but Pearl was captured by enemy forces in the chaos.

Maine helps Piotr with a very successful final interrogation of ghem-Miko, the Cetagandan scientist taken prisoner last month. He reveals that the Cetagandans have been studying the locations where exotics appeared, as it seems to be linked to wormhole technology, and that the Cetagandans are planning on building a device to control it. They have the technology, they're almost sure, but it's a puzzle they haven't solved yet. Ghem-Miko doesn't live long past his interrogation -- public execution by decapitation is his sentence, and when it's done, a few soldiers carry off his body and severed head.

Piotr's interrogation of Duv Galeni goes about as well but, blessedly, less fatally. It becomes known that Duv is from Komarr, the planet that sold Barrayar out to the Cetagandans, and that Duv Galeni is really David Galen, a relative of a few Counselors in the head of Komarran government. However, he's able to successfully convince Piotr that he isn't allied with the Cetagandans, and after a few days of agony, Duv is granted parole at Piotr's discretion.

On the evening of the 15th, Maine, Beth and Byerly inadvertently catch Vorhalas in the act of trying to sabotage what little of their food supply they've been able to recoup. He tries both fight and flight, but the three outsiders are able to take him down and drag him to Piotr's doorstep. It quickly becomes apparent that Vorhalas was responsible for the cave-in earlier in the month. Piotr is both furious and victorious; he now has a lead on the traitor conspiracy among his men, and his esteem of Beth, Maine and Byerly has gone up considerably for their part. Vorhalas is up next in the interrogation chair, and this one won't be pretty.

The unabridged event writeup is here.

cetaganda
The recent supply drop not only provides resources for the base and for distribution to their other outposts, but also brings fresh species for transplant into the gardens at the Grow Labs. The arrival of a handful of new exotics gives rise to a fresh wave of buzzing curiosity around the base. All of the new exotics are given thorough physicals, just as the first wave were, and provided with fatigues and anything else they might need. They make an even dozen now, their bunk at capacity. The Cetagandans are beginning to become accustomed to having the exotics on base, some of them even forward enough with their curiosity to be friendly. Darkstalker now has a small following of ghem lady scientists who regularly feature him as a subject in their art.

New arrivals will be processed as the first were -- once everyone has been whisked out of the extreme cold, everyone is subject to a thorough physical, including a number of scans that may or may not seem totally arcane to you. Other than a blood sample, nothing they're doing is at all invasive. Lady Diya d'Zefyst, while not a physician, is present at all physicals. She is easily notable not only for her striking, almost ethereal beauty as is typical of the haut, but, as the only haut on base, she is easily distinguishable by her lack of facepaint.

While the exotics still have freedom of movement around the base, the recent extreme temperatures have their hosts diplomatically suggesting they travel as much as possible, they are provided cold weather wear, as the mess hall and medbay are in separate buildings from the barracks. Weather warning aside, they encourage the exotics to take advantage of the non-restricted recreational facilities -- exercise rooms, art rooms, the lush gardens in the Grow Labs -- and will satisfy any reasonable curiosities.

base
In an effort to make the exotics feel more at home, the Cetagandans decide to put on the sort of function they might for visiting diplomats, full of art of all sorts, to show that they're just as willing to share their culture with the exotics as they're asking the exotics to share with them. The function is hosted on the evening of the 7th in an annex to the Grow Labs apparently meant for this express purpose, as it shows off the most beautiful and elegant of the Grow Labs' specimens, and acts as a live arboretum in and of itself, and quite vibrantly beautiful.



If there's one thing the Cetagandans are good at (besides art, and language, and genetics) it's throwing a good party. Functions like this are always an opportunity for Cetagandans to try and socially one-up one another; everyone is in their most fashionable dress in the latest fashions they manage to keep off-planet, or at least a dress uniform, wearing fanciful scents and vibrant facepaint they might not otherwise on the job. For the artistically inclined ghem (read: a lot of them), this is the chance to show off their artistic endeavors as well -- large sculptures of unusual and improbable materials, walkable installations meant to engage every sense, and of course the living art engineered by the ghem ladies, ranging from relatively simple and tame pieces such as koi fish patterned with clan insignia or black roses and blue orchids, to complex combinations of non-human DNA to create some genetic sculpture. There is, of course, food and drink -- in the usual flagrant Cetagandan style, although the hors d'oeuvres and drinks are even more ecletic than the usual mess hall fare. It seems as though the Cetagandan passion for genetic art extends even into the culinary realm.

At the center of the party is a particular kind of art installation called a discernment garden. Housed in a beautiful, improbably architectural tent, the discernment garden consists of a series of rooms, each meant to test the refinement of the senses -- not unlike a varietal wine tasting. Each room is dedicated to a single sense, inviting participants to judge a collection of samples and suss out the differences, or match tastes and smells and textures to labels; the end of the garden presents its visitors with a final art piece incorporating all five senses, as a final test of one's refinement. Some of the ghem might (a bit wryly) confess that this is actually more of an education tool used for Cetagandan children, but this is meant as a gesture of good will toward the exotics.



missions
On the evenings of the 6th and the 8th, some of the exotics do a little sneaking around, and not for the first time. York lends Kaidan his access badge to the R&D Lab on the 6th and Kaidan, along with Sans and Symmetra, stumble onto a whole lot of wormhole data and schematics to construct a device capable of controlling the phenomena of the exotics' appearance. On the 8th, Deanna and Natasha sneak around to the tactical buildings and overhear some marital discord between Zahal and Diya, and a troubling glimpse at their diverging plans.

On the evening of the 13th, Jasper, York and Daryl are all in the medbay when a biocontainment breach sends it into automatic lockdown, trapping them inside. They overhear Diya arguing with one of her subordinates over unauthorized use of ba genetic material, whatever that is.

The unabridged event writeup is here.

Comments

Cetaganda: Party!

[standsentinel]

a. arrival and mingling

Turned loose by the flock of ghem women who'd selected him as their canvas for the peculiar (but, as he's coming to realize, so very Cetagandan) contest of dressing willing exotics for the party, Kaidan arrives in the gardens alone. With enough time between escape and arrival to suggest he's taken a private turn down a hallway or two to make sure he can move smoothly in the unfamiliar sweep of robes, he lingers for a moment at the entry to the space, expression complex beneath the artfully graduated blue of his facepaint.

There's so much life here, so much Earth-descended life, in all the hues and colours of a homeworld he'd last seen as so much rubble and ash. Homesick is not a feeling Kaidan Alenko has had much contact with since he was eleven years old and watching Earth shrink for the first time through the viewport of a shuttle... and yet.

Only one thing for it, especially with his head crammed so full of the previous night's secrets: Find the bar, and have an artful drink or two to better pretend the moment on the steps didn't just happen. Kaidan's elegantly subdued robes rustle with the briskness of his passage.

b. dancing monkey

The music is somehow more alien at times than an asari orchestra, but the fact that it's not the heavy, throbbing bass of most of the bars in Citadel space actually works in Kaidan's favour: he's officer enough to have been to more than a few military balls, and conscious enough of his own dignity to have gotten a few lessons on the basics of formal dance. (Not everyone can own the Shepard Shuffle)

Even if the steps are archaic to Cetagandan eyes, there's a novelty in that all its own, and he does a little social information-gathering here and there when he can convince a partner out onto the floor. That it's an excuse to swap information privately with some of his fellow exotics is another archaic tradition too.

c.discernment garden

Maybe it was those elegant drinks of ealier, but Kaidan's found himself enjoying the evening enough, despite the World's Most Pretentious Science Fair aspects of some of it, that when he makes his third pass near the entrance to the discernment garden in the course of mingling, he's willing to give it a go. With a strong start on sight and hearing before crashing on determining the exact tactile difference between fabrics of varying thread counts and materials, he's redeemed himself somewhat on smell and taste... and is now circling the final installation with a look of deep bemusement. Art is subjective. Some of it is really subjective.

d. morning-after migraine

Art, as it turns out, is not only subjective it can result in being subjected, if you are one Kaidan Alenko, to a full five sensory experience known as the worst migraine he's had since well before the Reaper War. The discernment garden may have won him some more goodwill from their hosts, and thus a little more room to operate before he starts rousing suspicions, but as a chaser to a room full of perfumes, bright lights, sounds, noise and still more perfumes, it's taken a heavy toll.

The light and sound sensitivity are old friends by this point, and he's taken refuge in his bunk to try and wait them and the deep consuming pain and pressure out. When getting to his feet to use the head in the middle of the night results in so much dizziness and nausea that he ends up throwing up into an elegantly sculpted trash can, that tears it. "I... Ugh. "If anyone asks," he mumbles to anyone awakened, eyes closed to slits. "I'm going to the medbay."

d.

[pigsfeet]

Daryl doesn't go to the party. There's no reason for him to, he doesn't want to, it doesn't matter. Even before the Turn, he hated stupid shit like that. He hangs back, and does what he always does: patrols the halls, fails to sleep, and checks in nervously every few hours. He eventually finds Kaidan looking like he tried to sleep off a hangover.

He watches the guy hurl while leaning against the doorway. "Gotta lay back on the space booze." It's the closest he's come to telling a joke in weeks.

[standsentinel]

Kaidan stays on his knees with his new friend the trash can for a moment, one hand bracing himself against the wall while he waits to see if getting to his feet unaided is going to be a thing that can happen. A soft, hoarse bark of a laugh escapes him, before he grimaces at the taste of bile and an evening's worth of high-class food and beverages still lingering in his mouth. "I wish," he says. "Passed up a lot because I was worried about this."

[pigsfeet]

If it isn't a hangover, it might be more serious. Daryl leans down a little to look over Kaidan, trying to figure out what's wrong with him. "You sick?" Of course, sick isn't really what he means. He means, do you have some kind of serious illness? Of course he would. All the good people end up dying, anyway.

[standsentinel]

"Nothing that'll kill me," is Kaidan's answer. It's true, more or less -- the truly dire side effects of an L2 implant are ones he was lucky enough to miss out on. Since Daryl's leaning down already, he's not too proud to hold out a hand for some help to his feet, although he's courteous enough to hold out the hand that wasn't holding the trash can.

"I get migraines," is a more informative explanation. "I didn't know what to expect last night, but it was like an art festival in a perfume factory. I just... need some meds and a quiet place to curl up and die for a bit."

[pigsfeet]

Daryl helps him up without much hesitation or difficulty. Daryl's a sturdy arm to lean on at the best of times. Even in the face of hangovers, he's no slouch. He nods, trying to nudge Kaidan toward an open bed. "What kinda meds?"

[standsentinel]

"You name it, I've probably tried it," mutters Kaidan, one hand held in a cupping gesture against one side of his head. It won't do a damned thing, and he knows it, but indulging in the reflex to try and warm the pain away won't make it worse either. His footsteps are unusually lacking in coordination, fighting with feedback that says the room is spinning, but he manages to slither back to the beds with Daryl's help. "A triptan-class drug's good, if they've got one. But if you think they'll give you a hassle about getting it, just... point me at the medbay and I'll go myself."

Feeling guilty if he hears that Daryl's gone and gotten himself stunned by base staff again in the service of getting him some painkillers is something Kaidan would apparently like to avoid.

b

[shri]

[ She's her... well, her consistently surly, silent self that she has been since she arrived here. Still grieving somewhere low in her stomach for her secrets, personal as they were rather than revealing of the side she been allied too. At first not by choice, but now by vexation as much as honour. Oh, they had assured that; she would never swear to them.

Still, she's here to be pleasant, if removed and distant. Plain compared to the decadence that swirled around. A sickening display of wealth that she could not recoil more from, but in the severe way that comes with nobility, she can endure it with a particularly bored air.

Then again, sitting with her back straight, hands in her lap, watching the party-goers, there is something familiar to it. A daughter of the Brahmin Caste, and a Queen wasn't permitted to throw herself so freely into such things. Even if she was rather lost of most of those habits: where her pride in herself is about the only thing she has left, where they had wretched her secrets from her, she defaults to that stiffness. Eyes sliding over the others impassively. Watching him just the same, he seemed - quite gone with the festivity, enough it seems to ask her of all women to dance.

Which for one thing - she wasn't the best at that kind of dancing. She knows the steps, mostly, and being a swordswoman helped, but she had learned only from the women in the brothel. Half steps in an effort to blend in with them. What her soldiers did, so she always tried to partake in. ]

[standsentinel]

Kaidan's been operating on the theory that if he's willing to dance with everyone, it's less noticeable when he wants to take anyone specific out onto the floor, away from easy eavesdropping. His fellow exotics, particularly the new arrivals (willing or not) are the real reason he's been circulating, in robes and face paint that are practically restrained by comparison with their hosts.

His invitation being answered with a flat stare knocks him off his game momentarily, and he barely checks his instinct to rub at one temple (and thus smear the paint) before offering that "Hey, look, I won't be offended if you say no, but dancing lets them file us away into a category they understand." A pause to reflect returns the observation that he may need to explain himself a bit more, which he does with a "Makes it easier to talk freely. My name's Kaidan, I've been here about a month, now."

[shri]

That's - a damn good point, actually. Not that her expression gives much to the consideration - or rather, looks at him like she's weighing him. Solid, long gaze. Like she might just turn him down even with a good point. Then around, at the other party goers, which one of them was reporting on them? It had to be one of them at least.

But after that long break, her hand raises, an offering for him to take it. She could make do, for the time being. Still an odd habit, people just introduced themselves. She tended to be known, arrogant as that was to say, but it came with the territory. Nt formal words exchanged by a third party, no bow and scrape of one position to another. To that end, he might be the first person this evening she hasn't ignored unless they called her by title. But at least she can take the cue, easy to follow that one.

She lifts her hand, open offering for him to lead her. Like it could be that easy, and for this, at the moment, at his half promise, she can pretend. The soft movement of materials as she goes to stand with the gesture. Let him take her where he thought they could speak privately.

[standsentinel]

Kaidan, even at the best of times, can be somewhat clueless in terms of the myriad nuances of a good guarded expression. Despite his tactical social butterfly approach to the evening, a flash of the nerd lurking beneath the accomplished exterior surfaces, and leaves him meeting her stare with an "...or I can talk, and you can stare at me. That works too."

He also meets it with a lift of his hand to take hers, leading her out into the heart of the polite swirl of dancers before settling them into an unobjectionable foxtrot that doesn't so much approximate whatever dancing games the Cetagandans are playing with each other as match the time signature and travel at the same pace and direction. Fortunately, his lessons have included enough drilling on the importance of a strong lead that following is not hard. "A little direction on what you'd like me to talk about would be nice, though."

[shri]

Oh blast - another one that's taller than her. She was going to end up with a permanent crick in her neck from everyone these days. Still, her hand settles respectfully to his shoulder, settling warm and calloused into his own. The barest pressure like she's worried about - being held onto maybe. ( Terrified, let her skin turn to ash, let her slip out and away from this lest she ever be held and tied up again. ) But she lets him take the lead, her feet following along in the closest approximation. Mercifully, something she knows.

Something to talk about? She's quiet for a moment, and then very softly to his ear, she speaks. "Where do you hail from?" It's murmured and she sounds tired, even now. Exhausting, distrusting so much.

C!

[durango]

The discernment garden, in an odd way, is actually proving to be very helpful to Deanna, giving her an opportunity to focus on her other senses and strengthen them, now that her empathy is gone. It's soothing too, to walk through, watching, listening, running her fingers over soft silks and rippled wood. Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who does more listening with her mind than her ears, she does poorly in the hearing section, but otherwise, she does well, better than she expected even.

So by the time she gets to the last installation, she's quite determined to solve it, approaching it like a puzzle. But when someone else enters, she breaks away to offer a polite hello and a smile. She's seen him around her barracks, so despite his dress, she assumes he's one of the so-called "exotics," like her.

[standsentinel]

Kaidan, now face to face with the esoteric object at the garden's heart, is staring at it like he expects it to be some sort of mind-controlling ancient alien device when Deanna approaches him. The distraction is therefore much appreciated, and the smile he gives her in turn is just a little bit crooked below his borrowed blue face paint. "I get the impression you're more at home with this than I am."

[durango]

"It's... unusual, that's for sure." As is her thick Betazoid accent - if there was ever any question of her outsider status, that would erase all doubts. "But parts of it are not unlike some of the art on my homeworld."

[standsentinel]

The accent is unusual and yet strangely familiar, almost like an asari in some ways. Kaidan resumes his study of the piece at her answer, as if trying to see what bits might be more likely to have similarities than others, and steps forward to run his fingers along the surface of the sculpture in search of tactile clues. "What homeworld would that be?" he wonders. "I'm from Earth, myself." Earth, and some form of military if his bearing is any indication, even within the swirl of his robes.

[durango]

Earth. So yet another parallel, it seems. She bends to sniff a... Flower? That's not exactly the right term for it, but close enough. It's fragrance reminds her a little of cinnamon. "Betazed, but I have been to Earth many times - my father's family lives there."

SLIDES IN HERE also b.

[ghemhotstuff]

The gaze of appreciative eyes is something Kaidan should be used to, considering that's what the Cetagandans are all about -- being admired. Gail's is just one of many, but unlike the majority of the admirers, he has an in.

Which is why, during one of the lulls in dancing, Gail slides next to the older man with a smile ready. "I don't suppose I could trouble you for a dance?" He's not dressed in anything other than his uniform -- due to go on-duty in a few short hours -- but that would just make Kaidan stand out more. "I've been meaning to ask how you've been doing. How all of you are."

[standsentinel]

It's not that Kaidan's never been admired before, but Kaidan is frequently either oblivious to it when it happens, or talks himself into reasoning that he must be misinterpreting simple friendliness. That he's got so many eyes on him is a trifle alarming, even if he's busily rationalizing it as nothing more than being an exotic that's all dressed up in their fashions, like a child that's won favour by trying to be grown up. Gail, a recognizably pretty face amongst all the genetically polished good looks, earns himself a crooked smile for his question and the offer of an arm. "As long as you're not troubled by the fact that you're going to have to teach me anything more modern than a foxtrot."

[ghemhotstuff]

Gail grins, taking the other man's arm with a graceful ease. He may not be the oldest ghem there, nor haut, but the genetic lines that made him are still evident in the sculpting of his face and the smoothness of his motions. Pulling the other man into a stance, he shakes his head. "Not at all. I'm sure anything I could teach you will be a few years out of date back home. The styles change so often."

Said somewhat regretfully, but he's pleased to have the other man's attention just for a moment. "Although I've never danced a foxtrot before. Another trade?"

b. dancing monkey

[natalia_vdova]

Natasha is different from their first meeting in the gym. It's not just the silk robes the ghem women have dressed her in, black and red that accents her hair and makes her blue eyes even more striking, but there's a grace to how she moves. She smiles, but it's more mystery than mirth, and she moves around the room like this isn't familiar to her. There are none of those hard edges, the woman that was hard and jagged and seemed almost like she wanted to break something just to prove to herself she still could seems almost like she might have been someone else entirely, so thoroughly does Natasha switch guises.

She takes to the dance floor with anyone that seems willing, her movement as light as the silk they dressed her in, fluid like wine, and even the dance steps she doesn't know she picks up easy enough. Eventually she finds herself on the floor with Kaidan, an amused curl of lips as red as the facepaint that highlights artful cheekbones. Slender fingers press to the side of his waist, and she hopes that's still a thing in his time (starting is the hardest part, once you're moving to the music, alien as it might be, it's easy enough).

"Hopefully I'm not too out of date," she murmurs with a hint of wry amusement.

Re: b. dancing monkey

[standsentinel]

The colours they've both been dressed in complement each other well enough that there are a few approving sounds from the gathered ghem ladies as they take the floor in a swirl of subtle shading and the sharp splash of red. Kaidan seems unphased by her hands at his waist, although it does signal him to take her in a closer dance hold, her other hand hand curled against his shoulder, than he otherwise would.

That it makes for even easier private conversation is all the better, as, after a pause, he picks up a workable amount of 3/4 time in the current music and launches them out into the circling dancers. "You and me both," he agrees. "But hey, a waltz is a waltz, right? Worst case, we're being archaic for the sake of art."

[natalia_vdova]

Natasha is aware of the sounds of approval they get, but she ignores them in favor of smiling faintly at Kaidan. Though she does appreciate the robes, the way that the silk feels against her skin. Usually parties mean work of some stripe or another, so despite the pleasant smiles and easy manner, she's sharp edges under the silk and scent of roses.

"A waltz is a waltz. I wasn't sure if they still did that sort of thing in your time," she commented mildly. He told her what year he was from, and so she hadn't been entirely certain if the sort of dances she was familiar with had fallen out of common use in his time. She knew firsthand how much dancing had changed from the 1940s to the 21st century, after all. But her hand curls against his shoulder, following to his motions with an easy grace that comes to her naturally.

She certainly seems different from that first time they met.

[standsentinel]

"My time? Most of the dancing's at clubs, but I haven't really mastered the art of shaking my ass like nobody's watching, so... yeah," Kaidan sums up, raising his hand to let her show off with a turn. "Military balls they still waltz, so I learned for that."

She does seem different from their first run-in, so once they're back in a dance frame and swirling along the floor again, he lowers his voice and wonders "Are you, uh, adjusting better, then? You seem a little less tense."

[natalia_vdova]

"It's a good skill to master. Comes in handy in more situations than you'd imagine," she says lightly. It's hard to tell if she's teasing him, or serious. Maybe a mix of both. She spins, her robes flaring, the layers of light materials on easy display as they swirl around her ankles.

"Same. First time I did the waltz it was in uniform." She moves easily, light on her feet, graceful agile- she moves like a dancer. Or a fighter, depending on the lense you take on the facts. "Not really," she admits, a twitch of a smile. "But, the more you blend in, the less likely they are to pay attention."

She was good at being whomever she needed to be. The gym was a piece of solace she stole when she could actually be what she felt.